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China is expected to revisit its one-child policy after its National Bureau of Statistics recently reported a decrease of 3.45 million in the country's working-age population. The effect of any policy change would not be seen for at least 15 years, raising questions about the impact on China's economy.

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Starting on Jan. 1, 2016, China will relax its household registration system to let more people access basic public services. The system, known as hukou, was originally designed to limit migration from rural areas to the country's cities. Now, however, the country is looking to promote urban development. "The rationale for not giving a hukou to these hukou-less people has been considerably weakened after the one-child policy is abolished," said University of Washington geography professor Kam Wing Chan.

In the early 1900s, several explorers mounted expeditions to Antarctica in the hopes of becoming the first to reach the South Pole, write Neal Lineback, professor emeritus at Appalachian State University, and geographer Mandy Lineback Gritzner. Robert Falcon Scott's team members experienced difficulties on their journey: Their motorized sleds were ineffective, and they were unable to place a supply depot as close to the pole as they had hoped. When they finally reached the South Pole in January 1912, they found that a team led by another explorer, Roald Amundsen, had beaten them there by about a month. Scott and his team died while trying to make the journey back to their base camp.

After reviewing hundreds of scientific studies, researchers have concluded that dry conditions -- not damage caused by bark beetles -- may be responsible for wildfires in lodgepole pine and spruce forests. "[I]f you look into the long-term ecology of these forests, there is a high fire risk under drought conditions, even when the trees are green and the landscape looks beautiful," said Dominik Kulakowski, assistant professor of geography and biology at Clark University.

Highly skilled workers are clustering together in the U.S., but this seems to be having a negative effect on lower-skilled workers, writes Richard Florida of the University of Toronto. Lower-skilled workers in large metropolitan areas tend to see a boost in wages, but this gain is erased by higher housing prices, he notes. "There is a rising tide of sorts, but it only lifts about the most advantaged third of the workforce, leaving the other 66 percent much further behind," Florida writes.

China is expected to revisit its one-child policy after its National Bureau of Statistics recently reported a decrease of 3.45 million in the country's working-age population. Any policy change would not be seen for 15 years, raising questions about the effect on China's economy.